Migration

Migrating to PC-BSD

Migrating your computer to a brand new operating system can sometimes be a daunting task, and here at PC-BSD software we understand that. We’ve put together this quick guide to assist you in the process of moving to PC-BSD, with as little difficulty as possible.

Before you begin, there are a few things you should check to ensure that your system is ready to install PC-BSD.

Are you dual-booting or installing over the entire drive?

If you are dual-booting you will need to ensure that you have at least a 6GB primary partition available. Also you may wish to determine if the standard PC-BSD boot-loader will be sufficient to boot other operating systems. If not, you may wish to use another boot-loader such as GAG.

What type of video card is your system using?

This will normally only be important if you wish to run 3D applications and games, or utilize the 3D Compiz desktop. PC-BSD will support 3D acceleration on most NVIDIA cards and some Intel integrated cards.

Are you using a WiFi card in your system?

PC-BSD does have built-in support for several different brands of Wireless networking cards, including Intersil Prism, Atheros, and Intel. If you are using a wireless card with a different chipset, it may still be possible to add support via the NDIS driver .

Have you backed up your important data?

This is an important step to never forget. Any irreplaceable data, such as E-Mails, Bookmarks, or important files & documents should be backed up before installing a new operating system.

After you have gone through these items, you should be ready to start the installation of PC-BSD. For more detailed instructions on the actual installation process, you may wish to view our quick-guide. Should you run into an issue with your installation there are many different ways to get help with it.

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Comments (4)

Hi to all,
sorry but my english is very bad.
I’m very attracted by PC-BSD, but i have some problems to solve before switch.
There is a method to make an internet connection with a Samsung cellphone? That’s my only way to connect to internet.
I haven’t Windows on my PC. Actually on my box i have Ubuntu, Mint and Xubuntu. There is a way to mantain these distros on my computer?
As GRUB 2 isn’t so easy to configure, there is a method to edit that?

google.comHi Giorgio,
I haven’t used PCBSD yet but was browsing their blog. 🙂
For your situation, if you have Partition Magic lying around, it has a tiny utility called PQBoot that allows you to boot into numerous operating systems. Have a peek at it via Google: http://www.google.com/search?q=pqboot

Downloaded PC-BSD 8.2 Install-Only ISO. Verified MD5. Burned to CD and attempted to install (using Inspiron 6000 laptop) to external (USB) drive. Install started drive format/partition process; flashed message about “unable to access installation DVD” and stopped cold. Only visible option was to abort. Installed drive in laptop and tried again to install. Exact same problem. Found some advice that allowed me to save the install log. Tried to report a bug and got link crash. Haven’t found anyone with similar problem, and I’m not smart enough to fix on my own. Oh, and although the install option list includes “live”, “live” rolls immediately to regular install. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

I want to use the “Kega Fusion” Sega emulator on PC-BSD. The Linux version works on PC-BSD except for the sound.

Would PC-BSD be able to include ALSA and/or PulseAudio only for some Linux apps which need any of them sound servers? I’m guessing that not having the Linux sound server is why the sound in Kega Fusion does not work? I’ve tried editing its Fusion.ini file, but still no luck getting the sound to work on it.